Popular Culture Association of Canada stands on guard for the true north, strong and geeky

Surprising as it may sound, there is indeed such a thing as the Popular Culture Association of Canada and, now in its second year, the group is growing. Under duress, they say, from a library-closing, CBC budget-slashing Conservative government, the organization, which opens its three-day conference May 10 in Niagara Falls, Ont., seems to be rallying the troops as it strives to keep multiple enemies at bay.

“I get the sense that anything cultural is seen as gravy, to use the Toronto term,” says Scott Henderson, an associate professor in communication, popular culture and film at Brock University and the one spearheading the loosely affiliated band of critical Canadian pop culture thinkers that mirrors groups in Australia, Britain and the United States. “It’s easy to blow off water cooler talk about popular shows or movies, but that’s what shapes our attitudes. Someone needs to understand these processes — they help shape who we are.”

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There are 250 members of the PCAC, an increase of almost 100 professors, archivists, fanboys and graduate students since the group was inaugurated last year. Tasked with assigning deep meaning to both high and low art forms — from Nardwuar the Human Serviette to the Group of Seven, Margaret Atwood to Red Green — the group’s rallying cry is that, simply, pop culture matters. Even something as seemingly innocuous as Corner Gas contains a multitude of CanPop layers.

“Corner Gas is a reflection of political and economic realities in this country and from that, you can deduce beliefs and opinions about society,” says Stuart Henderson, a PCAC member and assistant professor in the history department of McMaster University. “Popular culture’s not an ivory tower pursuit — it’s a reflection of the conversations taking place in the street.”

At this year’s conference, conversation topics include “Masculinity, Muscularity and the Meaning of Life in Canadian Bodybuilding Magazines from the 1940s and 50s,” “Don Cherry, meet Stephen Colbert: The Performance of Politics and the Politics of Performance” and “WWE: Wrestling, Wellness and Entertainment — A Qualitative Analysis of Physical and Mental Health in Professional Wrestling.”

Laura Wiebe, a PhD candidate at McMaster who will be lecturing on the popular appeal of the paranormal, says the association is beneficial for sharing ideas, making connections and even finding a job.

“I fully intend to apply for academic work and likely a post-doc, but I could also find myself doing satisfying work outside the university,” Wiebe, 36, says. “We come together to insure that people with financial and political pull value culture; getting people involved in the broader cultural conversation is the mission of our group.”

Popular culture, because it’s accessible and somewhat disposable — especially in the Internet age — sometimes gets a bad rap in academic circles. But there are meanings to be deduced from what we’re listening to, reading and putting into bracket tournaments in our newspapers and online. Henderson, for instance, can talk about Canada’s shifting identity by comparing The Guess Who with Toronto’s Abel Tesfaye, whose family hails from Ethiopia and records as The Weeknd.

“The Weeknd right now can be understood to be quintessentially Canadian, but if you listen to the music, there’s no direct evidence that places him here while The Guess Who went out of their way to demonstrate their white Protestant upbringing,” says Henderson, adding that what he loves most about the PCAC is that it places him in a room full of other like-minded geeks.

“In other places, people might knock you for being obsessive about Rush, but here you can get away with calling them the Shakespeare of our time,” he says. “Canadian popular culture helps explain the complexities of society. It’s important that in Canada there’s a place where people can unabashedly talk about the intellectually stimulating aspects of Corner Gas.”

For more information on the Popular Culture Association of Canada, visit canpop.ca.